


Of Bastards, Shadows, and Shakespeare

by CorvidFeathers



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon Era, Education, Friendship, Gen, Philosophical Debate - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-26
Updated: 2013-10-26
Packaged: 2017-12-30 12:10:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1018443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CorvidFeathers/pseuds/CorvidFeathers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jehan express his disagreement with Shakespearian tropes violently. Jehan, Combeferre, and Feuilly discuss education.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Bastards, Shadows, and Shakespeare

**Author's Note:**

> Written for 1001paperboxes on tumblr.

Combeferre was used to outbursts of emotion from Jehan. His fervor for Romanticism was second only to his revolutionary convictions, and Romantics did not allow petty things like social convention hinder their personal expression.

He was taken aback, however, when Jehan suddenly flung the book he had been reading against the wall and burst into tears.

Up until that moment Combeferre had been spending a quiet evening in the back room of the Musain, with his medical books out before him to hide the pamphlet promoting the education of woman he was penning should anyone happen into the back room. For the most part it was their own, but he had learned over the course of his friendship with Enjolras and the other Amis that any disaster was possible, and it was best to treat every situation as if gendarmes could break down the door any minute. 

Intent on editing, Combeferre had only spared Jehan a glance when he came in the door. The idle part of his brain had noted his friend’s drawn expression, but that had been crowded out with further thoughts on his pamphlet as soon as they had exchanged greetings. 

The thump of the book against the wall went unnoticed, but at Jehan’s anguished sob Combeferre’s head snapped up.

"Prouvaire…?" he ventured tentatively. The poet was sitting with his feet perched on the edge of the stool, and his knees drawn up to his chest. His head was buried in his hands.

Combeferre stood and retrieved Jehan’s book, smoothing out the crumpled pages. The title read King Lear by William Shakespeare, and a quick flip through it revealed nothing that could have so upset Jehan. He had read the play before, and though it was depressing he didn’t think it warranted such an outburst.

"Prouvaire?" he asked again, coming over to the table and setting the book down in front of Jehan. He put his hand on Jehan’s shoulder.

Jehan lifted his tearstained face to meet Combeferre’s gaze, then looked away, his cheeks reddening to watch his puffy eyes. His sobs died out to sniffles.

"What’s wrong?" Combeferre asked, taking Jehan by the shoulders gently. 

"I… it’s not… it’s not… fair," Jehan said, wiping his eyes with the sleeve of his shirt. 

"What isn’t fair?" Combeferre prompted.

"The… the… the idea that ones characteristics are dependent on birth!" Jehan said. "The mistreatment of illegitimate children! If you treat a child like he’s vile and wicked from birth and will only amount to being a villain, he’ll become one!"

Combeferre picked up King Lear, flipping through its pages for a moment to gather his thoughts. He vaguely recalled the story… “Is it the treatment of the play’s characters that’s bothering you?”

"No… No, if it were confined to the pages, it could be more easily dismissed… if it were confined to Shakespeare it could be called antiquated," Jehan said, trying to take a steadying breath. "But literature is as much a product of popular thought as it is an influence on popular thought!” His cheeks were flushed with fervor now, the last of his tears drying away. “For society to cast people aside, to only teach children that they are worthless from origin is an atrocity, and one that is reinforced by every facet of culture! Shakespeare, the scholar the English all herald as brilliant, embraced these beliefs like most of his ilk!” 

The door opened, and Combeferre glanced up to see Feuilly walk into the room, but Jehan was too absorbed in his speech to notice.

“I was playing at being studious today, as there was no particular inspiration to be found elsewhere, and was sitting listening to one of those mummified specimens spout the laws regarding inheritance, when I overheard the soulless fellow behind me whining about a grisette he had got with child… he meant to leave her and the child, without any form of care at all! He meant to leave them to a life of poverty and starvation without a second thought!”

There were tears in Jehan’s eyes again, but his voice was steady.

“Some of Robespierre’s earliest essays and speeches advocate for the rights of bastards,” Feuilly said softly. He blushed when both Combeferre and Jehan’s gazes turned to him, and came to sit at the table,s etting down the books he had been carrying. “I… I don’t know that much, Enjolras just leant me a few books…”

“No, no, go on Feuilly,” Combeferre said. “I’ve read Robespierre’s writings, but not for some time. I don’t remember his opinion on bastards.”

“He believed strongly that a man who fathered illegitimately should be legally compelled to care for them, financially,” Feuilly said. 

“It is easy for a man to slip such an obligation,” Combeferre mused. “Less so for a woman. But the abandonment and stigmatization of children born illegitimately merely one part of society’s mass abandonment of souls, to poverty and ignorance, and ultimately early death. The lowest of society are kept in the shadows, in ignorance, and let to believe that they are born twisted and broken and the only way to survive is to become more so.”

Feuilly’s expression grew drawn, contemplative. “I know of many man and women like that,” he said, his eyes downcast.

“Education,” Jehan said suddenly. “Knowledge is what frees man. Knowledge gives men the liberty to see the choices before them, and the wings that allow them to seize those choices. The bourgeoisie and the aristocrats guard knowledge jealously, because they fear what those they have kept in the shadows for so long will do in the light.”

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't want to put a summary of King Lear in the fic because when I tried it seemed stilted, but it sparked Jehan's rant because one of the villains is a bastard mistreated by his father (well, depending on how you read it/how the production is staged) who gets a surprising amount of depth, but ultimately pulls the 'he's a bastard so of he's naturally evil' card.


End file.
